Cemetery

My footsteps make a loud echo as I tread down the hallway toward the bathroom. I need a shower. My hair feels slimy and my body is sticky from the humid air. I haven't taken a shower in a few days and am now to the point where irritation has set in. Even the slightest touch of my baggy gray T-Shirt is too much, and I have to pull it over my head before I'm anywhere close to the bathroom.

As I reach the bathroom door and grab the doorknob with my right hand, my left is throwing the ball of cloth aimlessly to the hallway floor. The way I throw it makes me pause a moment and look back, it was as if I were upset with the shirt.

Why should I be upset?

It was only serving its purpose.

A small thought of apology flows through my mind as I look at the floor in front of me and push the door open. After I step inside and have locked the door, the wall where the shower/bathtub should be catches my attention.

The white wall and matching tub have been replaced by, what looks to be a painting. I know what's about to happen. It has happened before, even though the scene painted then wasn't the same as the one now.

The painting will move if I touch it, even more so, let me go through it. But, I'm not sure I want to go through this one, as the scene being played out, is a cemetery. Of course, as it has to be in most paintings of graveyards, it's dark. And a milky white fog is lining the ground, covering the bottom half of the headstones. There are few clouds in the sky with no stars to give them light.

I search the painting thoroughly for something I know the imageries want me to see, but I can't find it. There's nothing special about the painting, other than the fact it just made my bathtub disappear.

My eyes fall to the floor as I try to ignore the painting. But, as soon as my head falls, I see Lydia appear out of the corner of my eye and I am forced to look back up. She's standing far off in the picture between two headstones but moving steadily, getting closer. Though it's not easy to tell her feet are off the ground, it's easy to tell she's floating, as she's moving much faster and more fluidly than someone walking or running would. As she reaches the end of the painting her feet step out onto the tile floor of the bathroom, her arm stretches out towards me and she speaks quietly.

“There's nothing to find, Dalton. Nothing that your eyes alone will capture. Come with me and you'll see what I mean.”

I don't want to.
Get over it, you're a man.

Deal with it, follow her, and deal with it.

I groan inwardly(I hate losing arguments with myself) and take her hand, wondering for a brief second why it is that she never wears clothes. She is a beautiful woman, long black hair covers up the parts of her which are not appropriate to be seen. But the least she could do is cut it so I can see everything or cover her body up completely with clothes so I can't see anything.

Lydia pulls me forward into the painting and instantly we are floating about five inches off the ground. She leads me down a hill to a freshly dug grave, and as our feet touch ground it starts raining. The rain is pounding down so hard I have to look at the grave to keep it from stinging my face.

I wonder who the grave was dug for.

“Who was it dug for?” Lydia asks in a manner that insists I am stupid and should already know the answer to the question. She sighs and moves so she is standing behind me, looking over my shoulders to the empty grave. I feel her hands press against my lower back and I only realize I'm being pushed when I hear her voice call after me. “It was dug for you, Dalton boy.”

A hard lump hits my back and oxygen 'oofs' out of me. When I have regained my oxygen and feel it is safe to look, I glance over my shoulders to find out what I've hit. As quickly as the coffin enters my sight it is gone and the scene before me is replaced with my bathtub and white wall.

The rain hadn't been rain.

Only my shower.

The coffin hadn't been a coffin.

Just my bathtub.

Looking up from the bottom of the bathtub I sigh and close my eyes, trying to prevent the water from getting in them.

It was an illusion.

What just happened was all an illusion.

It wasn't real.

But, it never is.

I should have known.